Ideas on Galileo, Bellarmine and the Bible

今天我演讲的题目是关于我个人的理解关于这本书的伽利略,贝拉明和理查德•j•布莱克威尔写的《圣经》。使我的演讲更容易跟随,这表示将包含四个部分。首先,简要介绍将理查德•j•布莱克威尔,然后一般介绍的背景信息和详细的总结书的每一章将检查;第三,我们将深入研究一些这本书的要点,最后但并非最不重要,我将提出我的问题,我希望我们可以有一个讨论。

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, it is a good opportunity for us to share our research findings with each other. The topic of my presentation today is about my personal understandings about the book Galileo, Bellarmine and the Bible written by Richard J. Blackwell. To make my presentation easier to follow, this presentation will contain four parts. Firstly, a brief introduction of Richard J. Blackwell will be given, then a general introduction of the background information and detailed summary for each chapter of the book will be examined; thirdly, we will dig into some key points of this book; last but not least, I will present my questions and I hope that we can have a discussion on them. 
Now, let’s begin with the introduction of the author Richard J. Blackwell who was born on 1929. Richard J. Blackwell is a renowned professor of philosophy, sciences, translation and bibliography of the St. Louis University. Through an elaborate study of his dissertations and representative books, we can find that he has really probed into the relationship between philosophy and science with the scientist Galileo as an outstanding example. Among his sparkling works, the book Galileo, Bellarmine and the Bible published in the year of 1991 is one of the most important since it is his primary devotion on the issue about the confrontation of science and biblical themes. I want to share with you my opinions on this book because I am firmly convinced that it has vividly depicted the conflicting ideas of the church and Galileo, which impressed me a lot. 
Then what are the exact contents of the book? Let’s see these different appendixes one by one. The first appendix as you can see has presented the decrees of the council of Trent, which has rigidly restrained the rights of profane people on the interpretation and publication of holy books to maintain the religion sacred and inviolable with heavy penalties for those anathemas. The second appendix has explained the scientific findings of many famous scientists, such Philolaus, Ponticus, Pomplilius and the Pythagoreans. Besides them, Ptolemy insists that the Geocentric, while Copernicus hold the heliocentric. To show the great power and infinite wisdom of God, the church accept and idea of Ptolemy. The third appendix reveals the ideas of the Cardinal Bellarmine on the contradiction of Christian faith against the heretics of the day, which refers to the religious views held by Martin Luther and John Calvin. In this part, Bellarmine also analyzes the literary and the spiritual meaning and where does the Holy Spirit exist. The last appendix is a letter from Galileo to Castelli, in which Galileo agrees that it is not possible for the Sacred Scripture to deceive or to err, but he can not accept the church’s maintaining the direct meaning of the words even to contradictory heresies. At the same time, Galileo emphasized that the globe of the sun rotates on itself and this statement doesn’t alter the words of the Sacred Scripture. 
With this brief summary of each appendix, it becomes quite clear that there is a huge conflict on how to interpret the Sacred Scripture. Why have I said that this book left a profound impression on me? On one hand, the author cites the appendix of both Bellarmine and Galileo to form a sharp contrast on the same issue about how to interpret these holy books in a very logical way. The first appendix lets us know that the Council of Trent has rigid rules and regulations on these books, which is cohesive with the ideas of the Cardinal Bellarmine presented in the third appendix. They actually can be seen as the representatives of the church at that time. However, the second and the forth appendixes shows the ideas of science represented by Nicolaus Copernicus and Galileo. These groups of people insist that individuals should also have the right to interpret Holy Scripture and they believe that nature is a divine existence so that their scientific and accurate approach to the truth of nature is their way of understanding God. The conflicts then formed since neither of these two groups can really persuaded each other. When the former part was more powerful, then the anathema would be punished, and Galileo were an apparent example. Once the power of church has been controlled, then scientists gained the initiative to criticize the wrong doings of the church on Galileo and other scientists who have sacrificed their lives during the long existing conflicts. 
The above information is the objective presentation of these articles; however, after finishing reading the book, I can not help thinking some questions. On one hand, I hope you can share with me some of your opinions; on the other hand, I want to draw your attention back to my presentation for more time. On page 188, Bellarmine mentioned the concepts “literal meaning” and “spiritual meaning”, and I think it is quite difficult to have exact standards for the distinction of these two meanings. What are your opinions? My second question is whether Bellarmine’s judgment of Martin Luther and John Calvin on page 193 is reasonable and logical for you? Last but not least, it is quite difficult for me to understand Galileo’s last few questions on page 201, would you think his hypothesis about the sun in this part is possible or not and why?
Well, given the limitations of the time, I must stop my presentation here. I wish sincerely that my presentation can promote you a better understanding of Richard J. Blackwell and this book. What matters most for me is that I welcome your opinions on the few questions I put forward in my presentation. Thank you!